Attachment theory as defense: What happened to infantile sexuality?

Abstract

Louisville, KentuckyNearly a century after the publication of “ Wild Psychoanalysis ” (Freud,1910) we struggle to grasp the full scope of one of Freud’s seminalcontributions and perhaps his most controversial idea, infantile sexuality. In1905, with the publication of the Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality,we observe Freud’s theoretical shift from seduction theory to infantilesexuality as he declares the sexual as the subject of psychoanalysis. Despitethis incredible discovery, in the past 50 years, our eld has steadily movedaway from the concept of infantile sexuality in favor of attachment as thecentral component in psychological development. It is argued in this paperthat Freud always recognized the importance of healthy attachment as animportant variable in development, but that he was interested in infantilesexuality as a separate, but related, aspect of development. This paper callsfor a reevaluation of this endangered concept for the purpose of rediscov-ering that infantile sexuality with its emphasis on the body as the earliestmeans of emotional regulation and self-experience is the conduit to under-standing our psychosomatic nature that is fundamental, along with relatedimplications for development of gender, anxiety disorders, perversions, andother signi cant developmental and clinical variables.Keywords: attachment, sexuality, pschosexuality, gender, metapsychologyNearly a century after the publication of “ Wild Psychoanalysis ” (Freud, 1910) we struggleto grasp the full scope of one of Freud’s seminal contributions and particularly his mostcontroversial idea, infantile sexuality. With the theoretical shift in 1905 from seductiontheory to infantile sexuality, Freud declares the sexual as the subject of psychoanalysis,af rming the centrality of Triebe over Instinkt and forever changing, as did Darwin andCopernicus before him, our worldview and self-perception. By 1910, the world hasalready felt the reverberations of Freud’s idea, and has begun to show the earliest signs ofmisapprehension and misunderstanding.